December 10-11: Nothingth, Tenth Circle of Hell, Love and Hope

A hole had just appeared in the Galaxy.  It was exactly a nothingth of a second long, a nothingth of an inch wide, and quite a lot of millions of light years from end to end.

The Galaxy opens up and rescues of Ford and Arthur, despite astronomical odds against it.  Improbability simply steps in and saves the day.  It does this many times throughout the book.

I am not going to apologize tonight for my absence yesterday.  I am in currently in the Tenth Circle of Hell, the one that Dante never got to visit.  In this circle, sinners are punished by sitting in hard-backed chair, staring at their laptops, and grading final exams for eternity.  Every once in a while, a bell rings, and the sinners may get up, stretch, go to the bathroom, but they have to carry their computers with them wherever they go, answering e-mails from worried students.  And it goes on and on and on and on and on . . .

This evening, I am meeting with my evening film class for evaluations, and then I am jumping in my car and speeding to my son's school for his Christmas band concert.  (Actually, I think it's called the "Winter" band concert, in which they play "Jolly Old Saint Nicholas" and "Good King Wenceslas.")  My son has been practicing like crazy on his trombone, so much that I think I could play his part in the program tonight, and I've never even picked up a trombone.

After the concert, it's back to grading and writing and grading some more.  I type these things expecting no sympathy.  This is what I signed up for.  I know that.  That understanding doesn't make the end of the semester any easier.  Please keep in mind, also, that, while full-time professors are in their comfortable, quiet offices finishing up their grading, I am cobbling together my grading time in between working a full-time job and parenting and working another part-time job.

If you can't tell, I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment.  Not because it's Christmas time.  Not because it's the end of the semester.  Not because I juggle four different jobs.  It's all of that, combined with some personal drama, that is capsizing my little canoe right now.  I will get through it all, as I always do.

On Christmas Eve, I will go to church, sing "Silent Night" in a candlelit church, and try to absorb some of that peace on Earth.  On Christmas morning, my son will drag us all out of bed before sunrise, and he will lose his mind over the big present coming his way.  And then, I will go play the pipe organ for Christmas morning Mass.  The rest of the day will be spent at my mother's house, opening more presents and eating and watching A Christmas Story and Miracle on 34th Street and It's a Wonderful Life.

I still believe that it's the most wonderful time of the year.  But it is also a time, as Charles Dickens put it, where want is keenly felt and abundance rejoices.  That want can be physical, financial, emotional, or spiritual.  In the words of another writer--this time Henry David Thoreau--"the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."  That's where I am right now.  Quiet desperation.   And it has little to do with all the grading I have left, and a lot to do with the feeling that I'm losing something that is supremely important to me as this year draws to a close.

I am looking for something brighter and happier as I enter the third decade of the 21st century.  Sometimes, however, finding happiness means enduring sorrow.  Because you can't have day without night.  Good without bad.  Fulfillment without hunger.  The cost of love is grief, because, eventually you will lose what you love, through illness or addiction or death or divorce or Donald Trump (yes, you can blame that man for just about any bad thing in the world today).

But love is worth the grief, because, without love, life would be a pretty lonely place.  I will never give up on love.  That would be like giving up on world peace or ending world hunger.  The best things in life require work.  A lot of it.  Writing a book.  Losing weight.  Exercising.  Being married.  Impeaching the President of the United States.

I will hold on to love and hope this Christmas season (and a little improbability).  I will get my grading done.  Finish writing my Christmas essay.  Buy Christmas presents.  Bake cookies.  Work at being a good father and husband.   Because that's what it's all about--doing your best in everything, despite your flaws and failings.

Saint Marty has plenty of flaws and failings to go around.  He also has plenty of love, as well.

November 18: Holiday Weather, Crafty Christmas, Hope and Light

Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such gladhearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air. More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile.

Even Ahab is not immune to the holiday season.  As serious as a hurricane, the captain of the Pequod is able to enjoy the "playful allurings of the girlish air."  Even the hardest of hearts can melt a little bit at this time of the year.

I have spent most of this weekend preparing my house for Christmas.  Yesterday, I cleaned my house with my daughter.  Then we dragged the plastic totes down from the attic, and last night we put A Christmas Story on the DVD player and set up the Christmas tree.  It's an artificial tree that my wife and I bought after our first Christmas as a married couple.  It was deeply discounted, and it has served us well ever since.  Twenty-three years.  That has to be some kind of record.

This afternoon, we went to work on our front porch.  It was my year to choose the theme for our outside decorations.  I have close to twenty years' worth of framed poetry broadsides that I've been giving to friends and family.  I decided to put them to good use this year, as well.  So, it's "Crafty Christmas" outside.  My daughter folded a bunch of origami animals for her English class last year.  We used her creations as ornaments for the tree.  I found some latch hook Christmas rugs that my sister Rosemarie made many years ago.  I hung those up, too.  Add a few of my framed poems, and I have a home-made Christmas that would make Martha Stewart proud.

Now, I'm sitting in my living room.  No lights in the house on, except for the Christmas tree.  Miracle on 34th Street is playing on the television, and I'm pretty darn tired.  But I'm full of holiday spirit.  Now, those of you who know me personally will not be surprised by any of my confessions here.  My coworkers hear me playing Christmas music on my computer all year long.  I listen to 'Tis the Podcast weekly.  (That's a podcast by three people who talk about Christmas movies and television specials and music all year long.  It's my new obsession.)  I love all things Christmas.

I know there are people reading this post who probably won't put up their trees and decorations until after Thanksgiving.  There are probably a few of you who even wait until Christmas week to glitter and light up your houses.  I also know that Christmas is not always the happiest time of the year for everyone.  I am sensitive to everyone's feelings about the holiday season.  I, myself, have had some pretty dark Yuletides.

This year, however, I'm determined to make the season bright, as the carol goes.  Sure. I have worries at work.  Still don't know if I'm going to have a job come January 1st.  Yeah, money is still really tight.  Always robbing Peter to pay Paul, as my mother says.  But, it doesn't cost any money to be cheerful or friendly.  To play a game of Trivial Pursuit with my daughter.  Watch The Year Without a Santa Claus with my son.  Bake some cookies.  Sing some songs.  Spread some goodwill around.  Because the world seems in short supply of all of that right now.

This isn't just about Christmas.  It's about hope and light.  Ever since President He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named took office, there hasn't been a whole lot of these things available.  Saint Marty intends to be an agent of hope and light this holiday season.

January 4: The Most Beautiful Day, Snow, Jean Shepherd, Book Club

It's the most beautiful day of the year.  At four o'clock the eastern sky is a dead stratus black flecked with low white clouds.  The sun in the west illuminates the ground, the mountains, and especially the bare branches of trees, so that everywhere silver trees cut into the black sky like a photographer's negative of a landscape.  The air and the ground are dry; the mountains are going off like neon signs.  Clouds slide east as if pulled from the horizon, like a tablecloth whipped off a table.  The hemlocks by the barbed wire fence are flinging themselves east as though their backs would break.  Purple shadows are racing east; the wind makes me face east, and again I feel the dizzying, drawn sensation I felt when the creek bank reeled.

Annie Dillard sees beauty everywhere.  On this day, the beauty comes from clouds and wind and sunlight.  It doesn't matter that a rainstorm is rolling in.  That the world is flickering like a 1920s black-and-white newsreel.  With the right gaze, any day can be the most beautiful day of the year.

I woke this morning to the sound of my neighbor's snowblower running.  I got out of bed, went to my front porch, and looked outside.

Overnight, the world had been transformed into a Christmas card scene.  All mounds of white and drifting snow.  It was beautiful.  And then I saw the foot of snow the city plows had thrown into my driveway.  My aesthetic admiration for the scene quickly faded.

I spent about an hour-and-a-half shoveling.  If it weren't for a kind neighbor snowblowing half my front yard, I would have probably spent the entire morning being intimate with my snow scoop.  Thank the Lord for generous neighbors. 

The rest of the day I spent in preparation for my book club's Christmas gathering.  We read Jean Shepherd's In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, which was the basis for the film A Christmas Story.  I'd read the book before, a loooooong time ago, when I was teaching downstate.  It was great to revisit Jean Shepherd's written work.

And the book club party was lovely.  Lots of good food and gifts.  Laughter.  Christmas music playing.  I got a Book Lover's Calendar for 2016 from my Secret Santa.  We picked out some books for the upcoming months.  Some John Irving and The Girl on a Train.  We talked about life and loss, Christmases present and past.  It was a thoroughly enjoyable night.

Saint Marty is ready for a long winter's nap, with lots of beauty in the day to come. 

Repeat after me:  "You'll shoot your eye out!"

December 15: It's A Wonderful Movie

Nothing can beat George Bailey

I'd like to conduct an informal survey about Christmas movies.  This time of year, I am usually watching yuletide films nightly with my wife and kids.  So far, we've watched Elf twice, A Christmas Story once, a few movie adaptations of A Christmas Carol, and various TV specials like Frosty the Snowman and A Charlie Brown Christmas.

The final movie I watched with my Intro to Film class at the university is, in my opinion, the best Christmas movie ever made.  It's inspiring.  It makes me cry.  It stars Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.  That's right.  I'm talking about Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.  My students loved it.

My informal survey is simple.  If you read this post, leave a message for me, telling me what you think the best Christmas movie ever made is.  You may be a White Christmas fan.  You may have a soft spot for National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  I myself could make a case for the French movie Joyeux Noel.  The title is up for grabs.  There may be a movie I haven't even considered.  For instance, the film Gremlins is set during the Christmas season.

Drop Saint Marty a line.  Let him know what Christmas movie warms your chestnuts.

December 6: Remarkable Boy, Prize Turkey, Ralphie

“An intelligent boy!” said Scrooge. “A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there? Not the little prize Turkey: the big one?”

Scrooge has this little exchange with a boy wandering by his house at the end of the book. Scrooge has obviously had a change of heart, and he’s beginning down his road to redemption. The boy runs to fetch the Poulterer and the prize Turkey for Scrooge.

I always picture this boy as an English version of Ralphie from the movie A Christmas Story, walking by Scrooge’s house with his Red Ryder BB gun hanging over his shoulder. I half-expect Scrooge to tell him, “Be careful, m’lad. You’ll shoot your eye out!”

This Blessing Thursday, I am having a friendly competition with a coworker. She is of the opinion that A Christmas Story only appeals to men who love The Three Stooges, and I believe it is universally beloved, crossing gender, age, and Stooge lines. (As a side note, I do love The Three Stooges.) We have been asking all women who enter the office their opinions of A Christmas Story. Aside from a few misanthropes, the response has been pretty standard, across-the-board: “Who doesn’t love that movie?”

Ralphie and Red Ryder bring joy to every one of my Christmases. At least two or three times during the holiday season, I will sit down and watch the film. My wife and I sometimes speak to each other in Ralphie-isms: “You’ll shoot your eye out!” and “Ho, ho, hoooo!” and “A crummy commercial!” and “Randy lay there like a slug…” The movie’s lines work in so many different situations. For example, if my wife wants to borrow a book from me that I’m reading, I can look at her and say, “Not a finger!” It gets the point across.

At the moment in our poll, Ralphie is winning almost 5,932,512 to 3.

This is what Saint Marty has to say about that: “I want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!”

"Oh, fuuuuuuudge!"